my experience with self diagnosis and childhood emotional neglect, and why those things correlate.

[gallerypiece]

some people can never imagine why i would accuse my parents of childhood and teenage emotional neglect. unless you had a dysfunctional family growing up and constantly lived in hard times, you would never be able to know the neglect that some of us experience as children. i was never physically neglected, we always had food and warmth, hot showers and clean water, but there is more to having children than giving them their basic physical needs. my mother was actually pretty good at nurturing me when i was a baby, i was taught to talk and walk early and was constantly engaged in activities with my mom. my dad was in and out because him and my mom divorced when I was 2. my childhood was pretty decent, despite when i started to become fully consious as a human being and self aware. i would have meltdowns and tantrums because i couldn't properly communicate my feelings and needs in the moment. i was just seen as bratty and disobedient by my mom. she never really believed in mental illnesses, or developmental disorders, and she certainly would never believe one of her own children is anything but neurotypical. as a teenager things got really bad, i started puberty early, at around the age of 9. i quickly started to notice how different I was from everyone around me and rarely ever found anyone like me, especially girls. this caused a lot of depression, and social anxiety. i don't know how i didn't make the connection before but i had always thought that my social anxiety was a disorder and had no stimmulous behind the anxiety i felt while socializing, but in reality i had only felt the anxiety because i didn't know how to small talk, or relate to others, and still struggled with regulating my emotions. not to mention my constant sensory issues which take up most of my energy every day. this is one of the first signs that made me start to accept and believe that i have autism. if you're in a situation like me where your parents never supported you emotionally and didn't believe in your mental health struggles, and you may believe you have autism, i highly suggest reaching out to someone for an evaluation to get a diagnosis. you can talk to your general physician or a therapist but your best bet is to go straight to a psychologist who performs evaluations, as they will directly give you a diagnosis after your testing is done after however many sessions there are for your evaluation. the only reason i know this is because i have scheduled my first appointment for January 16th, the first of 7-10 sessions where i'll go through testing and therapy to determine a diagnosis. i am lucky to have gotten an apoappointm so early, because some places will make you wait months. it depends on the availability in your area. another good tool to determine whether you think you are on the spectrum or not is by taking the autism quizes online, and try to go on reputable websites. this is not a definite diagnosis but it'll give you a better idea where on the spectrum you could be. i also like to talk to other people who have been diagnosed, as well as watching YouTube videos of people's experiences with autism. another good tip for females especially is to read up on autism in females, as it is different than autism in males, and can clear up any confusion as to why we can mask our autistic traits so well and adapt to socializing to some degree. i hope this helps someone it took me years to get to this point

 

[OkRad]

You never know what kind of Dr you will get.

I had two dxs, one as a child and the other as an adult.

Later, after the DSM changed, my Dr sent me to a new specialist to see if it had changed.

The new specialist laughed at me and said I made eye contact and did not twirl my fingers. It was an hour session. He did not even read the paperwork. He said , "As soon as you walked in, we knew you do not have autism."

Now, mind you, I had two previous Dxs. AND a geneticist at a top hospital who discovered a genetic anomaly I carry that is a marker for ASD.

He could not explain the two previous Dxs (one of which was by an Autism specialist PhD with two autistic kids of her own! The other was given long ago when the dx was not even given out often). And he ignored the genetics completely. Plus he had a cold and kept coughing in my face .

So be prepared if the Dr is biased and is only looking for LFA (low functioning).

If you can speak and make eye contact, some Drs shoot you right down, now that Aspergers is no longer in the DSM.

 

[Mattymatt]

some people can never imagine why i would accuse my parents of childhood and teenage emotional neglect. unless you had a dysfunctional family growing up and constantly lived in hard times, you would never be able to know the neglect that some of us experience as children. i was never physically neglected, we always had food and warmth, hot showers and clean water, but there is more to having children than giving them their basic physical needs. my mother was actually pretty good at nurturing me when i was a baby, i was taught to talk and walk early and was constantly engaged in activities with my mom. my dad was in and out because him and my mom divorced when I was 2. my childhood was pretty decent, despite when i started to become fully consious as a human being and self aware. i would have meltdowns and tantrums because i couldn't properly communicate my feelings and needs in the moment. i was just seen as bratty and disobedient by my mom. she never really believed in mental illnesses, or developmental disorders, and she certainly would never believe one of her own children is anything but neurotypical. as a teenager things got really bad, i started puberty early, at around the age of 9. i quickly started to notice how different I was from everyone around me and rarely ever found anyone like me, especially girls. this caused a lot of depression, and social anxiety. i don't know how i didn't make the connection before but i had always thought that my social anxiety was a disorder and had no stimmulous behind the anxiety i felt while socializing, but in reality i had only felt the anxiety because i didn't know how to small talk, or relate to others, and still struggled with regulating my emotions. not to mention my constant sensory issues which take up most of my energy every day. this is one of the first signs that made me start to accept and believe that i have autism. if you're in a situation like me where your parents never supported you emotionally and didn't believe in your mental health struggles, and you may believe you have autism, i highly suggest reaching out to someone for an evaluation to get a diagnosis. you can talk to your general physician or a therapist but your best bet is to go straight to a psychologist who performs evaluations, as they will directly give you a diagnosis after your testing is done after however many sessions there are for your evaluation. the only reason i know this is because i have scheduled my first appointment for January 16th, the first of 7-10 sessions where i'll go through testing and therapy to determine a diagnosis. i am lucky to have gotten an apoappointm so early, because some places will make you wait months. it depends on the availability in your area. another good tool to determine whether you think you are on the spectrum or not is by taking the autism quizes online, and try to go on reputable websites. this is not a definite diagnosis but it'll give you a better idea where on the spectrum you could be. i also like to talk to other people who have been diagnosed, as well as watching YouTube videos of people's experiences with autism. another good tip for females especially is to read up on autism in females, as it is different than autism in males, and can clear up any confusion as to why we can mask our autistic traits so well and adapt to socializing to some degree. i hope this helps someone it took me years to get to this point

It's always sad to read about another person on the spectrum that suffered abuse. I know what it is like all too intimately.

 

[Fino]

That's a lot like me! My problems were ignored for religious reasons, but it looks like the same result!

Except I got help myself through a school counselor. I was informally diagnosed for many things and treated by a social worker who specialized in none of them because it was our only choice.

Once I did have more options, I never saw any reason to be formally diagnosed. If the goal would be for some insurance or disability reason, I could get that from my dozen existing diagnoses.

I'm glad you made it through! Did you parents ever say anything like, "Stop that right now," or, "Stop being weird," or, "You're just trying to get attention," or, "what's wrong with you?" or, "where did we go wrong with you?" or anything along those lines in response to autistic behavior?

 

[ijrr]

This sounds like my experience as well! And sometimes it extends past just mental illnesses/learning disabilities/neurological disorders etc... I remember when I was a teenager my lymph nodes were swollen and I had a couple other symptoms of thyroid cancer, so the doctor wanted to do a biopsy on me to make sure. But my mom said something along the lines of "I don't want you to do that because it's just going to be painful and you're not going to have cancer and there won't have been any point in doing it"

Yes, I'm terrified of needles, and the experience of going through a tissue biopsy would've probably been extremely stressful, but what is this "you're not going to have cancer" mentality? How could you know something like that?

My mother was like this in all regards to my health, so I never received a diagnosis for anything until I self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital at age 18. I was there for two weeks, and the psychiatrist still struggled to get me a proper diagnosis. I was so disconnected and faded due to depression (and autism-related anxiety to the whole dang situation) that she didn't diagnose me with any kind of anxiety disorder - which, to anyone who really knows me, is absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I think that's just the world that we live in. I've been trying to get help for my various mental and physical illnesses, and I still technically only have one diagnosis (major depression with psychotic tendencies, because apparently, I don't have enough psychosis to have its own diagnosis). That's why I'm a strong believer in self-diagnosis, if you've done the proper research.

But of course, I personally want to have a diagnosis (likely HFA), just because I want some help and assistance and understanding. But knowing my circumstances and just how "high-functioning" I seem to be to other people, I don't think it's likely I'll get an official diagnosis any time soon.

 

[Fino]

This sounds like my experience as well! And sometimes it extends past just mental illnesses/learning disabilities/neurological disorders etc... I remember when I was a teenager my lymph nodes were swollen and I had a couple other symptoms of thyroid cancer, so the doctor wanted to do a biopsy on me to make sure. But my mom said something along the lines of "I don't want you to do that because it's just going to be painful and you're not going to have cancer and there won't have been any point in doing it"

Yes, I'm terrified of needles, and the experience of going through a tissue biopsy would've probably been extremely stressful, but what is this "you're not going to have cancer" mentality? How could you know something like that?

My mother was like this in all regards to my health, so I never received a diagnosis for anything until I self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital at age 18. I was there for two weeks, and the psychiatrist still struggled to get me a proper diagnosis. I was so disconnected and faded due to depression (and autism-related anxiety to the whole dang situation) that she didn't diagnose me with any kind of anxiety disorder - which, to anyone who really knows me, is absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I think that's just the world that we live in. I've been trying to get help for my various mental and physical illnesses, and I still technically only have one diagnosis (major depression with psychotic tendencies, because apparently, I don't have enough psychosis to have its own diagnosis). That's why I'm a strong believer in self-diagnosis, if you've done the proper research.

But of course, I personally want to have a diagnosis (likely HFA), just because I want some help and assistance and understanding. But knowing my circumstances and just how "high-functioning" I seem to be to other people, I don't think it's likely I'll get an official diagnosis any time soon.

Several months to several years of therapy would result in the most accurate diagnoses. Two weeks isn't enough, that's not even one episode of some illnesses!

 

[gallerypiece]

This sounds like my experience as well! And sometimes it extends past just mental illnesses/learning disabilities/neurological disorders etc... I remember when I was a teenager my lymph nodes were swollen and I had a couple other symptoms of thyroid cancer, so the doctor wanted to do a biopsy on me to make sure. But my mom said something along the lines of "I don't want you to do that because it's just going to be painful and you're not going to have cancer and there won't have been any point in doing it"

Yes, I'm terrified of needles, and the experience of going through a tissue biopsy would've probably been extremely stressful, but what is this "you're not going to have cancer" mentality? How could you know something like that?

My mother was like this in all regards to my health, so I never received a diagnosis for anything until I self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital at age 18. I was there for two weeks, and the psychiatrist still struggled to get me a proper diagnosis. I was so disconnected and faded due to depression (and autism-related anxiety to the whole dang situation) that she didn't diagnose me with any kind of anxiety disorder - which, to anyone who really knows me, is absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I think that's just the world that we live in. I've been trying to get help for my various mental and physical illnesses, and I still technically only have one diagnosis (major depression with psychotic tendencies, because apparently, I don't have enough psychosis to have its own diagnosis). That's why I'm a strong believer in self-diagnosis, if you've done the proper research.

But of course, I personally want to have a diagnosis (likely HFA), just because I want some help and assistance and understanding. But knowing my circumstances and just how "high-functioning" I seem to be to other people, I don't think it's likely I'll get an official diagnosis any time soon.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience!! I am glad that someone else agrees with me about self diagnosis with proper research done. I've spent the last 3 years researching autism spectrum disorders and I'm confident I'm on the spectrum, high functioning of course. so high functioning that I have mostly been able to mask my differences from people for the past 20 years of my life, that and my parents pure negligence and ignorance. I hope that I can receive a diagnosis at my appointment I have coming up. the first appointment is just a consultation but it's a start to the testing they'll be doing. I hope you receive a diagnosis for clarity of mind and to make your life easier to understand

 

[gallerypiece]

Several months to several years of therapy would result in the most accurate diagnoses. Two weeks isn't enough, that's not even one episode of some illnesses!

I am starting a 7-10 week testing and therapy on January 16th to determine a diagnosis for me. The testing will be specifically for autism spectrum disorders so I hope that I can receive the most proper diagnosis possible.

 

[gallerypiece]

That's a lot like me! My problems were ignored for religious reasons, but it looks like the same result!

Except I got help myself through a school counselor. I was informally diagnosed for many things and treated by a social worker who specialized in none of them because it was our only choice.

Once I did have more options, I never saw any reason to be formally diagnosed. If the goal would be for some insurance or disability reason, I could get that from my dozen existing diagnoses.

I'm glad you made it through! Did you parents ever say anything like, "Stop that right now," or, "Stop being weird," or, "You're just trying to get attention," or, "what's wrong with you?" or, "where did we go wrong with you?" or anything along those lines in response to autistic behavior?

my parents said stuff like that all the time to me, and so did a lot of my peers in school. I just didn't understand what they were saying because I was always just being me. to this day my mother verbally abuses me and shouts at me to "grow up" because I can't work a regular job like retail or anything so I am not receiving money. I'm trying to get on disability but it's hard.

 

[gallerypiece]

It's always sad to read about another person on the spectrum that suffered abuse. I know what it is like all too intimately.

it gives me so much love and hope that others like me exist and are still going strong and are valid and loved as well